Good reasoning. I liked Mint-Z slightly more than Mint-X but they're both good themes. I guess the easiest way to keep up with gtk3 theme developments is to base Mint's theme on Adwaita - Adwaita has become a really attractive theme.

Thank you for this thread. That’s all I can say. You most definitely have made this forum into something special. You clearly know what you are doing, you’ve covered so many bases. Thanks!

Clem wrote:GTK3.x integration requires too much maintenance to support more than one theme

Hmm... I haven't seen the newer versions yet, but as of Maya, gtk-3.0 subdirs in Mint-X and Mint-Z are totally identical. Some time later one of them has just been linked to the other (this commit). So the maintenance must have become easier... or not?

Yep, here too. I think it has to do with integrating the jockey functionality into Software Sources.

Yup. If you recall, opening the old "Additional Drivers" (jockey) in Mint 13/Ubuntu 12.04, it scanned the hardware first before opening the drivers window. That scanning still takes place. They just eliminated the "scanning" box that popped up first. I applaud the new feature but it's not the best GUI integration in my opinion as it leaves the user wondering what's going on. By the way, this feature came from Ubuntu, not Mint.

"Humph. Choice, it is the quintessential Linux delusion, simultaneously the source of it's greatest strength, and it's greatest weakness." (All apologies to The Architect)

I can not believe how quick bugs are getting fixed in the release candidate! I originally thought that Ubuntu 12.04 was slow and sluggish but what Clem has done with this base is amazingly fast. Cinnamon really looks refined in this release. I would go so far as to say this is the nicest looking release I have ever ran. My wife even commented on how nice she thought my desktop looked! The default backgrounds and themes are really nice. I love the stars background and the Gnome theme, it works out great for me because it is so easy on the eyes.

The new icons really add a lot for being a small detail. I was reading just the other day about Ubuntu making various package management icons similar and here this is already accomplished in Mint. The VLC icon stands out nicely and it just plain looks good. Nemo looks especially good with the black side panel and white text, having a full featured file manager again is awesome. Having a selection of MDM themes by default is sure nice too. It took no time at all to get my system to look exactly the way I liked with what was provided by default. It just doesn't get any better than this!

Ever since I installed the NVidea 304 drivers on my desktop, it has been problem free. I appreciated Clem posting about the multiarch bug and the solution, also that this would be fixed by default in the final release. This was a good find and it's just one more reason to go with Mint. I can see this release getting some very good reviews already! I would never have imagined Cinnamon maturing as quickly as it is and it goes to show that you can have a traditional desktop that has a very modern look and feel. Mint 14 is going to receive a lot of well deserved positive reviews.

I cannot seem to get the login sound disabled. Unchecking the “Login successful” box on the Accessibility tab of Login Window Preferences has no effect—neither in Mate nor in Cinnamon, actually. Is anyone else seeing this? Is there another way to turn it off?